Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town plans to tag babies electronically as one of several security measures to protect newborns.
An internal network set up at the hospital to support the tags is presently in the pipeline.
Should it go ahead, Tygerberg will become the first public health facility in the province to use the tags, which activates alarms if a tagged baby is removed from a specific area.
The infrastructure for the plan is expected to be completed next year.
The safety of babies in hospital was highlighted in July two years ago when newborn Siphisihle Ncumani was snatched from a maternity ward at the hospital.
He was found about a month later.
It was established then that no hospital staff had played a role in his abduction and that a woman, Bulelwa Xeza, had managed to get into the ward before smuggling the baby outside.
She was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
At the time of the abduction Premier Helen Zille and Tygerberg Hospital’s management announced a number of plans, including the introduction of the electronic tags and CCTV cameras to boost security.
Health department spokeswoman Faiza Steyn said a number of these plans had been implemented at the hospital.
She said these included:
* An increase in the number of security guards.
* Newborns being kept in a dedicated area.
* CCTV cameras were installed at the main entrance to the maternity ward.
* An electronic access-control door was placed at the entrance of maternity wards.
* Visitors to the wards were meticulously screened
.
* Visits during non-visiting hours, even for a baby’s father, were strictly controlled.
Steyn said the department also had a written policy in place in terms of the access to maternity wards and the discharge of newborns.
“We have a register of each patient in the respective maternity wards. A security guard is placed at the entrance of each ward and a copy of the patient’s IDs is with the guards. The mother, a professional nurse and additional nurse will identify the baby on discharge and the guard will record the discharged baby as well,” she said.
To further boost security, Steyn said the electronic tags were still in the pipeline.
“The electronic baby tagging has not been introduced yet due to its complexity. However it is our intention to establish the internal network at (Tygerberg Hospital’s) maternity unit to accommodate the system during the current financial year.
“None of our facilities have this as yet,” she said.
It was not yet clear how much money would be needed for the tags, but Steyn said the costing formed part of a feasibility report.
She could not say exactly when the use of the tags would be implemented.
The Cape Times established Life Kingsbury Hospital in Claremont was one of the few facilities that already used the tags.
The hospital’s spokesman, Regan Beukes, said the tags which looked like barcodes, were waterproof and were attached to babies’ backs. He said this tagging system had been used for years. - Cape Times